With three teams in this League investing in Artifical Pitches and enjoying the cash stream and savings they generate are the threats by The National League to relegate Clubs who dont accept promotion to the EFL risking making the this season and the play offs a farce.

Easiest way these Clubs have to protect themselves is to throw games id they look like winning the League and worse still do the same in the Play offs. Can see this whole season ending in a farce

I can see the clubs mounting a legal challenge and the EFL having to give in, in that the clubs will have time to restore grass, in the same way they have time to upgrade other things.

But the clubs knew the rules when they got promoted to the national league, it seems a bit unfair to be crying foul now.

Personally, I’d like to see more of these studies about how artificial pitches have cancer risks.

As to the National League losing its credibility, it does that everytime it has an AGM cup and doesn’t automatically relegate the bottom four of the division.* *This opinion only stands whilst we do not need the AGM cup to stay up. If we ever do, then I will believe the AGM cup is a truly wonderful and fair thing.

TBH artificial pitches are the future, like it or not, and sooner or later the EFL will have to bite the bullet and allow their clubs to have them. You can play Champions League and World Cup matches on them, but not a League Two match? They are swimming against the tide, living in the past.

Clubs at our level and below can see facilities used 7 days a week with an artificial pitch, increasing income and accessibility. I'm guessing, but it seems liklely that after teh initial outlay, they are cheaper to maintain too. Once teams learn to play the right sort of football on them, they encourage a passing game too.

I can’t see artificial pitches being the future en masse because of the environmental impact of removing grass pitches and replacing them with plastic.

Grass is a living, breathing organism which absorbs rainwater, allows nature to grow, and helps ease pollution. Is every single pitch out there going to be ripped up and replaced with plastic because it makes economic sense? Not going to happen.

Auntie Merge wrote:I can’t see artificial pitches being the future en masse because of the environmental impact of removing grass pitches and replacing them with plastic.

Grass is a living, breathing organism which absorbs rainwater, allows nature to grow, and helps ease pollution. Is every single pitch out there going to be ripped up and replaced with plastic because it makes economic sense? Not going to happen.

Where did I say every single pitch?

Councils, like Barking & Dagenham, have reduced sports field maintenance over the years and the number and quality of football pitches that are available at grassroots level is shocking now.

Where they do remain, they have virtually stopped maintaining them, barely even cut and mark them any more and they are virtually unusable at all in January and February most years. Put in one good quality artificial pitch and it can be used all day every day, and the mud heaps that councils don't bother to maintain can return to being parkland. Put one in at Victoria Road and hire it out and watch the income from that and the bars accumulate.

Go take a look at Aveley's new ground, Parkside. That is the future, like it or not.

It will only be the future for so long. Then the environmental lobby will take over.I expect to see clubs with artificial pitches paying an environmental tax for the privilege. Just wait for councils to cotton on.

There are already campaigns under way to encourage people not to pave over the grass in their gardens, due to the environmental impacts. As plastic pitches take hold, I can see this kind of campaign spreading.

I can’t comment on the local pitches. But surely it costs more to run, upkeep and repair a plastic pitch, and there is a higher level of responsibility to its users if it’s faulty, than grass?

Clearly artificial pitches are future because money and money generation will always win the argument Environmental issues not even remotely relevant What the real issue should be is a very simple football is meant to be played on grass. Slide tackling, the ball holding up, low bounce are what makes for good matches But as referees make it a non contact sport and VAR tries to sanitise the whole experience we can expect plastic to thrive.I for one miss those old days

The bounce is much better on modern 3g and 4g pitches than it was on the ones that Luton and QPR put in years ago which are always the reference point for these discussions and were sand based and deadly. TBH bounce is no longer an issue.

As you say, slide tackling is a dieing art anyway due to refereeing as much as anything else, but is also not impossible on the newer pitches.

At the top level, where they can afford to have armies of groundsmen keeping the pitches pristene, artificial light on them to keep the grass growing like marijuana factiories, and "keep off the grass" signs all round, the grass pitch will always remain the preferred way. At lower levels, economics will kick in eventually.

Below is how they keep the Wembley pitch as it is... picture taken in September!

I hate playing on them and generally think the game as a spectacle suffers too. Even the best ones with appropriate footwear never seem to give the same foothold and ability to change direction. The bounce is still different as is the run of the ball. On the plus side you don't get irregular bounces! And as much as I dislike them they are probably better than some of the mud heaps in the borough that are almost unplayable at times.

Agree the state of grass roots pitches is shocking. The council takes a pitch fee for next to nothing. I've never seen one rolled or divots replaced or mown to the right length. I doubt they'd upkeep the plastic ones either. Some idiot will probably vandalise them and the council will just leave them unrepaired.

I do think it's inevitable they become the norm for lower league clubs and I expect the EFL to allow them. I have a feeling Sutton will go up one way or another.

SUSSEX DAGGER wrote:Interesting points but none so far to the point of my post.

We could end up with three teams in the play offs who are not interested in winning making a mockery of the whole thing.

Sutton have already stated they have no ambition to anything better then the best non league team in Country

Doesn't effect the "Credabilty" (sic) of the National League though does it, just demonstrates how daft the EFL is for blocking pitches that FIFA and UEFA would happily use for their premier competitions. It would not be the first time ground issues have been used to stop a club going up, but it hasn't happened since 1997.

I would be very surprised if a club that had the right to go up didn't find a way to do so via a ground share or something like it while it reconfigured its ground if it had to. If a team refused promotion out of principal, then that is it's right I guess. More fool the rest of the league that can't beat a team with such an obvious lack of ambition though.